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singalana's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Even though I listened to it as an audio, I had to SLOG through this book!
It has been about a year since I listened to the first part of the trilogy. It was a huge mistake to wait that long because I spent about the first 20 % of the book wondering who that character was, what that word meant and what happened in the last book.
After I got over that, the book started dragging for a different reason: NOTHING MEANINGFUL HAPPENS! It feels like there are no stakes, and so much time is spent on describing the most meaningless things. As one reviewer pointed out, everything that the characters try to do is thwarted by someone more powerful.
About 60 % in, I realized that I do not care about any of these characters. Except maybe for Dara, because he is at least a little bit interesting. There’s no real feeling of danger, and I knew nothing bad would happen to the characters. The main character, Nahri, is insufferably righteous, the same as Ali. As one reviewer put it: 99 % of the characters are magical racists, religious fanatics or war criminals. Not exactly a likeable bunch.
Spoilers!
But in all seriousness, I could not give a damn about any of these characters, especially since they are all so infuriatingly dramatic all the time. It sucks out any real impact a really dramatic scene should have when the characters are gasping and staring in shock about half of the book. If the author succeeded in something, it was when in the first book, I started to like Dara, even though he is practically a war criminal. Then, in the second book, I’m supposed to root for the Qahtanis, I guess?
In addition to that, this book is all over the place about the shafit, the “mixed-bloods”, who are part human. The shafit are treated as something to be saved, and when they lash out for being treated like cattle, they are suddenly wild animals.
This book has way too many elements, it’s way too slow, and everything is so damn dramatic all the time. I’m so glad this is over. Let’s see if I pick up the last part of this series in a year or so after I have forgotten how messy and frustrating this was.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Colonisation, Death of parent, Blood, Gun violence, Misogyny, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Violence, Grief, Medical trauma, Slavery, Alcohol, Classism, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Hate crime, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, War, and Xenophobia
breadwitchery's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Violence, and Death
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, and Alcoholism
Minor: Cursing, Sexual content, Alcohol, Vomit, Religious bigotry, and Slavery
mxpringle's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, War, Torture, Murder, Genocide, Emotional abuse, Death, Classism, Blood, and Alcoholism
Moderate: Sexual content and Sexual harassment
abigails_books's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
"Daevabad had crushed everyone in it...Fear and hate ruled the city—built up by centuries of spilled blood and the resulting grievances. It was a place where everyone was so busy trying to survive and ensure their loved ones survived that there was no room to build new trust."
Summary: With its vibrant prose, political intricacies, and slow-growing, tender love, The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty went above and beyond my expectations for the follow-up to The Daevabad Trilogy’s first novel, The City of Brass.
The novel picks up the story five years after the events of the City of Brass took place. We meet up with Nahri, Muntadhir, and Jamshid, stuck—especially in Nahri’s case I’d say imprisoned—in Daevabad; while we find Ali in Bir Nabat, a quiet community where he’s grown from a privileged prince into a fierce yet kind man, and Dara, brought back to ‘life,’ as the first Daeva or Djinn to be freed from Suleiman’s curse, meaning he now takes a new form that is less conducive to the human world.
Chakraborty navigates the thin line of disappointment, betrayal, and loss of love and life between Nahri and her respective, yet completely different, relationships with Ali and Dara.
What begins as an angered encounter after seeing Ali again after five years, the two slowly return to friendly graces and discover they are working for the same goals—a world where all the designations that separate their people no longer matter. But they are alone in a crowd of many who will do anything but let that happen.
The ties that bind Ali and Nahri together are strengthened as a deep connection between the two begins to solidify into something very tangibly sweet, tender, funny, and even heartbreaking. Meanwhile, Nahri’s connection to her first love, Dara, dwindles away as he seeks to start another war that will tear the progress Nahri and Ali have made, apart.
"To believe that the boy who'd taught her to conjure a flame was real, and that the man he'd become was not manipulating her yet again, to believe that not everyone and everything in this miserable city had to be second guessed."
Thoughts: To me some of the most powerful themes weaved into this story are the ways fragility between the separate groups—and two people who are especially drawn to each other but were born to be enemies—and the yearn to return to a society that values personhood over tribe, humanity (for lack of a better word) over violence. And all the while, Chakraborty ties in an incredibly slow-burn romance that allows all the complex feelings of hatred and admiration and the desire to avenge generations of loss.
"Who's died in your arms? Who have you begged to come back, to look at one last time?"
I absolutely adored the way Nahri goes from angry, yet worried for, Ali to seeing his gentle heart, and wanting to help him get out—to live a happy life, even if it means she realizes she doesn’t want him to leave. The slow tenderness is extremely touching and felt almost viscerally real to me.
"He does care...recklessly so. Passionately so...He cares so much he's willing to risk himself and everyone around him, unwilling to accept a shade of gray or a lesser evil in service to the greater good."
This is not a love that is born out of ease, it’s a love born out of true understanding, complex desire, and simple adoration of another’s pure soul, somehow not marred despite the violence that seems to envelop their world.
"She cupped his cheek, her thumb brushing his beard. She didn't miss the sudden racing of his heart.
Nor the sadness rising in her own...
'Go steal some happiness for yourself, my friend,' she said softly. 'Trust me when I say the chance doesn't always come back.'"
"Nahri did not think she had it in her to watch the kind man who'd built her this office—this quiet homage to the home she still loved—the man who'd taught her to read and helped her summon flames for the first time—to be executed in the arena."
I could say a lot of things about Ali and his growth, but all I’ll say is in the first book he begrudgingly taught her how to read, and in this book he said this to his brother:
"She is worth ten of you."
And finally, the slowly woven story of Daraand Manizheh, aka Nahri’s MOTHER who plan to re-take Daevabad.
"You will make us monsters...'
'Then we will be monsters.'"
Violence comes, as to be expected with any takeover of a city, and Nahri finds herself on opposite sides of someone she’s always dreamt of, and someone she once loved.
I honestly do not have any negatives about this book. It was excellent and much faster-paced than the first novel due to world-building and Nahri’s journey to get to Daevabad. From the first two chapters of Kingdom of Copper, I was fully invested in the direction the story was taking and felt completely swept away by the new developments.
The mysteries of the series are slowly woven through this novel, but still leave more to be discovered in the finale, The Empire of Gold, which I appreciated. It’s answering some things, so not leaving us totally in the dark, but also enticing the reader to keep reading for full enlightenment.
This is one of the first sequels I’ve read where I felt the content and plot completely surpassed the beauty and perfection of the first. If I could give more than 5 stars, I would.
Summary: With its vibrant prose, political intricacies, and slow-growing, tender love, The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty went above and beyond my expectations for the follow-up to The Daevabad Trilogy’s first novel, The City of Brass.
The novel picks up the story five years after the events of the City of Brass took place. We meet up with Nahri, Muntadhir, and Jamshid, stuck—especially in Nahri’s case I’d say imprisoned—in Daevabad; while we find Ali in Bir Nabat, a quiet community where he’s grown from a privileged prince into a fierce yet kind man, and Dara, brought back to ‘life,’ as the first Daeva or Djinn to be freed from Suleiman’s curse, meaning he now takes a new form that is less conducive to the human world.
Chakraborty navigates the thin line of disappointment, betrayal, and loss of love and life between Nahri and her respective, yet completely different, relationships with Ali and Dara.
What begins as an angered encounter after seeing Ali again after five years, the two slowly return to friendly graces and discover they are working for the same goals—a world where all the designations that separate their people no longer matter. But they are alone in a crowd of many who will do anything but let that happen.
The ties that bind Ali and Nahri together are strengthened as a deep connection between the two begins to solidify into something very tangibly sweet, tender, funny, and even heartbreaking. Meanwhile, Nahri’s connection to her first love, Dara, dwindles away as he seeks to start another war that will tear the progress Nahri and Ali have made, apart.
"To believe that the boy who'd taught her to conjure a flame was real, and that the man he'd become was not manipulating her yet again, to believe that not everyone and everything in this miserable city had to be second guessed."
Thoughts: To me some of the most powerful themes weaved into this story are the ways fragility between the separate groups—and two people who are especially drawn to each other but were born to be enemies—and the yearn to return to a society that values personhood over tribe, humanity (for lack of a better word) over violence. And all the while, Chakraborty ties in an incredibly slow-burn romance that allows all the complex feelings of hatred and admiration and the desire to avenge generations of loss.
"Who's died in your arms? Who have you begged to come back, to look at one last time?"
I absolutely adored the way Nahri goes from angry, yet worried for, Ali to seeing his gentle heart, and wanting to help him get out—to live a happy life, even if it means she realizes she doesn’t want him to leave. The slow tenderness is extremely touching and felt almost viscerally real to me.
"He does care...recklessly so. Passionately so...He cares so much he's willing to risk himself and everyone around him, unwilling to accept a shade of gray or a lesser evil in service to the greater good."
This is not a love that is born out of ease, it’s a love born out of true understanding, complex desire, and simple adoration of another’s pure soul, somehow not marred despite the violence that seems to envelop their world.
"She cupped his cheek, her thumb brushing his beard. She didn't miss the sudden racing of his heart.
Nor the sadness rising in her own...
'Go steal some happiness for yourself, my friend,' she said softly. 'Trust me when I say the chance doesn't always come back.'"
"Nahri did not think she had it in her to watch the kind man who'd built her this office—this quiet homage to the home she still loved—the man who'd taught her to read and helped her summon flames for the first time—to be executed in the arena."
I could say a lot of things about Ali and his growth, but all I’ll say is in the first book he begrudgingly taught her how to read, and in this book he said this to his brother:
"She is worth ten of you."
And finally, the slowly woven story of Dara
"You will make us monsters...'
'Then we will be monsters.'"
Violence comes, as to be expected with any takeover of a city, and Nahri finds herself on opposite sides of someone she’s always dreamt of, and someone she once loved.
I honestly do not have any negatives about this book. It was excellent and much faster-paced than the first novel due to world-building and Nahri’s journey to get to Daevabad. From the first two chapters of Kingdom of Copper, I was fully invested in the direction the story was taking and felt completely swept away by the new developments.
The mysteries of the series are slowly woven through this novel, but still leave more to be discovered in the finale, The Empire of Gold, which I appreciated. It’s answering some things, so not leaving us totally in the dark, but also enticing the reader to keep reading for full enlightenment.
This is one of the first sequels I’ve read where I felt the content and plot completely surpassed the beauty and perfection of the first. If I could give more than 5 stars, I would.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Death of parent, Sexual content, and Death
Minor: Rape
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